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During his 65-year career in professional baseball, Birdie Tebbetts was a player, coach, manager, scout, and executive and nobody knew the game the way Birdie did. From Hank Greenberg to Reggie Jackson, Birdie worked with all the brightest stars in baseball's constellation and this biography is a behind-the-scenes memoir to one of the more unique and engaging people to haave ever played the game.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Red Sox great Ted Williams called his late former teammate Birdie Tebbetts "one of the greatest guys I ever met," and Tebbetts, a meticulous diarist during a nearly 50-year career as a player and manager, is undeniably a class act. The "confessions," however, are few and far between; the squeaky-clean Tebbetts shares scores of anecdotes, but his workman-like narrative is not always riveting and sometimes seems a little musty (as when Tebbetts delivers a polemic about the effect of modern catcher's mitts on players' skills). Nonetheless, there are some engrossing tales here, such as the one about playing in an impromptu ballgame after a bloody battle at Iwo Jima, or being sold for a dollar by one drunk owner to another. Perhaps most revealing of Tebbetts's character is his recollection of an umpire who suffered dizzy spells following his return from the war. Afraid of losing his job, the ump asked Tebbetts, the catcher, to help calling balls and strikes, and Tebbetts tipped him off with hand signals following each pitch. Tebbetts is also depicted as a warm, open-hearted family man in the amusing sidebars, written by relatives, which are interspersed throughout the book. All in all, Tebbetts fans will be charmed, and many baseball enthusiasts will find enough lore to hold their interest. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In this delightful romp, Tebbetts discusses his six-decade-long career in professional baseball. A starting catcher with the 1940 pennant-winning Detroit Tigers, Tebbetts freely shares his impressions about such teammates as Hank Greenberg and Hal Newhouser. While he reveres Greenberg, who urged him to adopt a hard-nosed approach to contractual negotiations, Tebbetts dismisses Newhouser as a World War II phenomenon who "got into the Hall of Fame by begging to get in." Later a member of the Boston Red Sox, Tebbetts also greatly admired Ted Williams, but he does complain that the Splendid Splinter ineptly tried to tell him how to call pitches. A moderately successful manager, Tebbetts later became a longtime scout for the Mets, Yankees, Orioles, and Marlins. Recommended for general libraries. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Top customer reviews

Birdie Tebbetts' career in baseball covered nearly his entire life and he expresses his opinions on a number of things, oftentimes in strong terms. A New England native Birdie says his best years in baseball were with the Boston Red Sox. After having spent a number of years in Detroit with the Tigers, Birdie says he was booed out of Detroit. Tebbetts says pitcher Hal Newhouser of the Tigers begged his way into the Hall of Fame. Newhouser, he says, had his best years when the stars were off fighting WWII. Could this be sour grapes for his not being in the Hall of Fame himself? As an executive for the Milwaukee Braves during the 1960's Birdie says it was a job he detested. Such things as deciding on a hospitalization plan for the groundscrew and who is to get the contract for paving the parking lot at County Stadium were meetings he had to sit in on. He does provide us with some interesting tidbits in regard to what scouts look for in baseball prospects. I may be wrong, but at times Birdie seems to come across as a braggert. I also didn't feel it was necessary for him to be so flippant in using God's name in vain so many times.

THIS IS A VERY NICE BOOK TO READ. I DIDN'T KNOW BIRDIE PERSONALLY SO I CAN'T COMMENT ON WHETHER HE WROTE THIS OR NOT. BUT I AM FROM CLEVELAND, AND REMEMBER HIM AS MANAGER DURING THE MIDDLE 1960'S. HE DID A GOOD JOB AND WAS WELL RESPECTED BY THE PLAYERS AND MEDIA. I ENJOYED THIS TALE OF HIS LIFE IN AND OUT OF BASEBALL. I AGREE WITH ANOTHER REVIEWER THAT I THINK MORE TIME WAS NEEDED ON HIS MANAGING CAREER. ALSO I WOULD HAVE RATED THIS 5 STARS IF THIS BOOK WAS LONGER. BUT VERY WELL DONE AND QUITE INTERESTING.VERY RECOMMENDED.

Birdie was an educated, thoughtful and entertaining family man with a heart and soul for baseball. He loved the sport, the players, the business and management. The representation that Birdie was a swaggering nomad and had anything to do with this book is as fictional as the book itself. The author published the book years after Birdie's death, without Birdie's consent and with no access to diaries. Any portrayal that the author was close to Birdie or Birdie's immediate family is simply not true.

Unlike a couple of other reviewers (....), I never knew Birdie, and cannot attest whether these pages seem written by the real man. What does stand out, however, is that any fan of baseball before the present - swing for the fences, no strategy needed - era will enjoy this book. James Morrison has culled many, many delicious stories from Birdie's diaries. Some stories are not brand new to baseball literature, but Birdie's viewpoint on them is worthwhile. Except for some quotes using swear words, I cannot see what Birdie's friends can object to here. The player-manager-scout's humanity and delightful humor ring out on every page. Perhaps the best chapter reviews player-umpire relations in the "old days," but the anecdotes throughout make it hard not to read out loud to others.My only regret is that short space was given to Birdie's managing years. I suspect he was too busy then to post lengthy diary entries. Perhaps Birdie would have edited the finished product differently, had he lived, but this book will stand out with that of his Tiger teammate, Elden Auker's, as one of the best books on baseball from the '30s through the 50s.